


Finale

by CorvidRoses



Category: The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
Genre: Afterlife, Death, Elysium, Epilogue, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:35:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25044739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CorvidRoses/pseuds/CorvidRoses
Summary: In which lover finally meets lover
Relationships: Achilles/Patroclus (Song of Achilles)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 207





	Finale

**Author's Note:**

> I know this isn't my usual Final Fantasy drabble, but I just finished reading this book and it was the first time I had EVER been reduced to tears and hysterics. My little gay heart is in love with these boys and I just wanted to write a sort of?? epilogue to this story.
> 
> I hope it's worth it, for the lovers

“Go, he is waiting for you.”

Those were the sea-nymph’s final words to me. I would never see her again, as she would live on alone, under the dark depths of the seas with no child to bear.

Perhaps someday, there would be more, but that mattered little to me now.

He has been waiting for me.  
~  
With how common it was for men to fear death and the Underworld, I was surprised to find that Hades was far kinder than the gods had declared him to be, his city of the dead not a flaming wasteland of souls trapped in a never ending torture. No, that was saved for the most beastly of men, and I knew Achilles would not be there. The gods were cruel, and had gifted him his unfair life, but they would not torture him in death. Hellfire was never a hero’s fate.

Instead, I stood in a cave, glowing pink from what I thought was a fire, but as I looked around, there was no source of the light. 

There was rain drizzling outside, and this was familiar to me; this cave made of rose quartz. Pelion. We always vowed to return. It seemed a lifetime ago that we had trained here, as boys. I suppose now it is, but the time we spent, the things we did...it was a haven I shall never forget. Was this what the gods wished for me? Was this what the lord of the afterlife thought fitting for me? 

Elysian Fields.

Truly, it would be, but I was missing something.

The gentle pluck of Lyre strings could be heard outside, and my heart, had I still had one, would have skipped a beat. Let it be true, I hoped. 

I did not hesitate, I turned on my heel and sprang from the cave, as if it were a race. 

I was never good at running, but if it were with hope…

Just over the small peak of the cliff, there sat a bundle of golden hair, shining brightly despite the dreary light of the sky. Fingers lazily pricked the strings of the lyre; there was no voice to accompany it. Still I watched, I watched him in silent awe, frozen in my tracks as he carelessly fiddled with the instrument. 

He seemed weary.

Weary with waiting.

I had hoped that he would hear my hurried footsteps and come running, or to at least have turned with alarm. But he didn’t move, nor respond. Just sat, plucking at his lyre.

I knew he was tired. 

I knelt behind him, knees gently pressed against his shoulder blades. My hands came up into his hair, and if I could, I would have shivered. I could feel him again. Really, truly feel him. How I had missed the soft blanket that was his hair. And it didn’t end there. I drank in his scent as quickly as I could, as if it had been a million years between us and it would be the only thing to make me remember his face, blurred from my memory.

But I had always promised I would know him, even in death. I would never forget Achilles, as I knew he would do the same.

He had tensed, acknowledging my presence, but hesitating. Perhaps he had dreamed of this so many times following my passing, he thought this to be his eternal damnation. I would not blame him, I had always felt a life without him would be the same to me.

But, just as I had done back on Pelion, just as I had done at the shores of Troy and the ten years that followed, I allowed my fingertips to trace the crown of his head, and I could feel him slowly relax against the touch. 

I smiled as his weight settled against me.  
“I am sorry for being late. I know you thought to keep me waiting...but I am here now. I am with you, agapiméni mou.” My Beloved.  
“Achilles, I am with you.”

The second time I spoke it, it cemented itself in his mind. The lyre he had been holding dropped into the grass, and he nearly jerked his head around to see me. Gods, I realized then, how I had missed those eyes, green like the sea foam that lined the shores, speckled with gold like sand. They were searching my face for some sort of imperfection, something that would give me away as something false. He couldn’t find it. 

“Patroclus” pa-tro-clus, he spoke it as he always had, though nearly breathless. He could not believe his eyes, but I would make him believe. I cupped his cheeks once more, leaning forward to press my forehead against his. The tip of my nose bumped his, and we stayed like that for a moment, simply basking in our shared warmth.

And then I opened my mouth to his, and I drank him in once more. The feeling of his lips against mine was divine, and I crashed into him; desperate and clinging, wanting to never let go again. I would not, never again. He turned his body fully to me, to wrap his arms around me, to hold me close.

In his desperation to have me, he had knocked us both back; him toppling over me and pinning me to the grass below. We had shared many a moment like this back on Pelion, I could tell that these were his happiest moments, that this was where he would stay; before the war, before the lies and deceit and the bloodshed. There would be no more sacrifices of human flesh and broken warfare, just us. Just the two of us, in a small little corner of the world.

I could think of nothing better than to spend eternity with him.

He pressed his nose to mine, as he had done so many times before, and I could feel his breath on my lips, overwhelmed and almost unbelieving. Was I truly more than a dream? More than the corpse he had laid with for so many nights, hoping to reanimate simply because it heard his scream in the night, his desperate pleadings that he would save me next time, and every time after that.

I brought a hand to his cheek, gently and cautiously; a healers hand, some would say.  
“I am here, Achilles.” I spoke once more, my thumb tracing his perfectly sculpted cheekbone. I could feel the slight weight of him leaning into it, his cheek pressing against the palm of my hand and squishing there, reminding me of the chubby cherub likeness he had shown in his youth. 

I smiled, and he knew me. 

I had always known I was the wittier one, but I always found it humorous when I caught the realization in his eyes after my own.

“Patroclus…” it was less of a question of misbelief, more of a confirmation. I watched him smile, his eyes softening.  
“Patroclus...Patroclus...Patroclus…” he repeated it again and again, a soft chant against the skin of my lips, as if breathing the life back into me. I had watched him try many times.

“I am here.” Once more.

“How?”

“Your mother’s only act of kindness towards me.” Though, we both knew it was more for her son.   
“She would have me tell you of your mortality and why you cherished it. I’d like to believe she understood, at the end of it all.”

I did not like Thetis. I don’t think I ever would. But I would give her this, that I had never lied to Achilles, and I did not intend to now. 

His lips pressed together in thought, before he seemed to come to terms with the reasoning for my absence. He knew then, that someone had wished me a wandering soul, so that I would not tarnish his fame. Achilles did not find true hatred in many things throughout his life, but this was something I knew he hated most. 

He once said to me, as we lay in the grassy fields as we were now, that I had made him favor mortality. Often people would mistake his want to be a hero, as a want to be a god. But those things were not mutually exclusive, not many people knew this. Gods were immortal, heroes were mortal, always. This was what he wanted, I realized this over time.

I felt him kiss me again, stirring me from my thoughts as he was always so keen on doing. He did not like me keeping thoughts to myself and I did not like keeping them from him, but sometimes I couldn’t help it. Gods, I felt like a boy again. As if the war had never happened. As we’d never left Pelion.

I leaned into his kiss, fingers finding their way through his golden waves again, securing themselves. Reclaiming him. I feel him press me into the grass, his chest against mine as his fair lips travel from my lips, to my jaw, to my throat. I still myself, I feel him sigh. He goes to my chest, rising and falling in a fake inhale and exhale. He kisses me there, right in the center. He moves again, one hand slipping the sleeve of my tunic from my arm, pulling it down to my hips. We freeze for a moment; a hesitation, we know what he intends to do.

His lips grace the center of my stomach, and he rests there at my old wound. I could feel his hands trembling as they framed my hips, as I could feel his lips slowly press themselves to every Inch of what would have been a gaping hole.

I could feel his tears as they came. I knew he had been holding in his apologies for so long, apologies that were not his to give, for he had done nothing. I had done this. I wanted to, for him. 

My hands fell from his hair, and I held his face. His forest green eyes met mine in sorrow, in want of forgiveness. Forgive me my pride, it was not worth it. Not in a thousand Thousand years. They said.

He would always have my forgiveness.

“I love you, Achilles.” He knew this, but he had not heard it in so long, I would forgive him his surprise. 

I would forgive him.

He had waited long enough.

There were days when I would hold him, and days when he would hold me, and we never grew tired of our time spent together. This eternity we had been blessed with in the afterlife was more than I could ever ask for, but we were happy again. Finally, we were happy again. 

We had waited long enough.


End file.
